[un]luck.

the harris fine arts center (hereafter referenced to as the hfac) is a large building.

there are five floors, various hidden practice rooms, printing labs, galleries, offices, studios, lounges, classrooms, performance halls, recital halls. the list goes on. a lot of the building is underground with no windows and too many whitewashed walls.

sometimes it's magical. you'll be close enough to touch the head of c.f. payne in a classroom with artists lining the walls and sitting on desks while a heavenly chorus sings from the gallery downstairs. (the gallery is big. echoing is inevitable.)

and sometimes it's even more magical. because you'll be sitting in a class that you're [not] underqualified for [but you won't realize that until much, much later], waiting for the professor to walk in and sign your add/drop card because you want to be an artist so bad it hurts. you'll be early to the class and the only one there amongst tables curiously stained with charcoal or paint. then someone with red hair will walk in with a big black portfolio. she'll tell you she's trying to add the class too. you'll see her artwork and still feel underqualified, but you'll feel better because she is there on the same terms that you are.

and then (the most magical thing) one day you'll be completely away from the hfac, sitting on your twenty-three-year-old teal couch on a saturday morning wearing flannel when someone knocks on the door. you open it and realize it's another group of freshmen looking at your apartment. but you'll recognize the red hair and know that there was no way she accidentally knocked on the door.

proof that heavenly father cares about you. (about me.)
proof that he knows what's going to happen in your life,
and what you can and can't handle without a lucky red-headed roommate.











the red hair looks especially festive when it's st. patrick's day.

these people may be some of my best friends.
and by may i mean they are.

hopefully i'll get more pictures on the blog
because i finally have a camera that doesn't have
a focusing problem!

but, seeings how there are a total of three
people who read this regularly,
nobody probably cares.

which is cool.
peace.

des soucis

Tonight was oh-so-lovely.

There are times when I look at the lot I've been given in life and ask, "Why me?"
We all do. We're human. We consistently look for what's missing instead of seeing what we've got.
Boy, do I got a lot.

Let's start with the father always willing to help with my poor Stella (who had a mishap a few days ago) (and Stella's my car).

The mother I call from outside the auto repair shop, stranded, with my credit card declined, and she laughs at me (I soon join her).

Then the wonderful people I'm blessed to call friends. The missionaries. The roommates (past and present). And the girls (who I had the chance to be with tonight).

Even as I sat tonight, hearing Transatlanticism come on twice in the movie we were watching, I remembered the people who helped me out when things were down. Everybody mentioned above. And more. Then Your Song was playing on my stereo when I got in the car. That takes me back. And that makes me realize that no matter what happens, those people will be there for me. They're the rocks. The ones that will never fail. Come marshmallow guns and killer sprinklers, I will always have those people.

"It's not time to worry yet."
And even if it was, they'd all be there.

distractions

so, i'm still putting off writing that essay. it's almost done, but i always justify writing one sentence with at least 10 minutes of blog stalking and mindless facebooking (because that's all facebook is: mindless).

it's kinda like how i put off going to bed last night, just because my heart hurt and i wanted to keep talking to my red-headed alycia friend.

(here's a secret: redheads are lucky for me.)

then i wanted to pull an all-nighter and make cinnamon rolls with her because it seems so poetic to be heartsick and cooking cinnamon rolls in the middle of the night when you don't want to go to sleep. then logic decided that since i get up at 4:15 in the morning, i should probably go to bed.

so i did.

then different art ideas were swirling in my mind and i almost got out of my bed to sketch.
then i was too warm and decided against it.
then i fell asleep.

there's me on the far left.
becca (my other roommate) in the middle behind me.
and the redhead laughing in the pink?
alycia. who'll kill me for putting up this picture.

"in my head, i am awesome"

thank goodness for people like sexy sadie who make life better.
don't be afraid by the knife. we were mutilating a pumpkin last autumn.

the mountain

i hiked timp the other morning.
it was one of those magical experiences where everything around you is profound and metaphors just exist. i decided that our entire existence was dichotomous because of the opposition of all things.

the mountain was on fire. i walked through it. i also carried some of it out of the canyon with me.

welcome to wyoming

nothing says "boredom buster" like a trip to wyoming.



i wish i had some profound metaphor or statement to go with that.
but i don't.
although (not profound) we dedicated the trip to wyoming boy after we heard this song when we passed through midway. which lead to the discussion about why i will never understand why kid rock became a country singer.
happy summer!

happiness

miracles so far for today:
emailing back and forth with this guy for ten minutes or so.
yes. he's wearing church clothes. in a hot tub.
today is a branticus day. one of those days where i really just needed to talk with a guy.
but! happy news!

hota hota is coming back in three months!
count 'em....THREE!
then they'll just come back quick. i hope.

one sunny day the world was waiting for a lover

dear sexy sadie:

do you have a cigarette? or pepper spray?
and did you realize you should probably get a new keyboard?
because really. the one you've got almost ended up out the window as we planned our adventure for the 14th of june.

and you can pose with the sculptures at the hirshorn museum and sculpture garden. promise.

love, kayleigh


p.s. this picture may have accidentally been burned to that cd of pics you made me.
p.p.s. check out sadie's blog here.
p.p.p.s. is that even legal? washington d.c. in nine days!!

see ya later. promise.

also.

the last time i'll see laura until august was this morning.
she walked down the sidewalk under the tree that i've watched bloom the past few weeks.
i had a curling iron in my hair. literally.
elton john and billy joel were playing in the background.
i yelled, "bye, laura!" out my open window.

on a positive note

i love them.

for emily

one of the loveliest people i know and probably the person who got me saying lovely all the time now taught me a very important lesson amongst many.

"you deserve to be adored."

now, she is competing in the finals of the mormon times blogger brawl. and if she wins this round which she deserves completely she gets to write for them and get paid! so please, pretty please...if you read this blog at all, go to this link and vote for her. here's some important information.

1. you can vote on different browsers
(i.e. mozilla firefox, internet explorer, safari)

2. you can vote only once a day
not just once ever, but once a day

3. it goes through the 27th.
so vote. vote multiple times.
multiple browsers
multiple days.
read her column, and love her as much as i do.

thieves

if a gypsy in italy stole money from your mother's purse, what would you do?

nae didn't know she'd do what she did:

sprint after the gypsy,
rip the money from her hands,
and begin yelling at her in english.

please note: nae's blonde hair sticks out in a chaos of olive complexions.

that gypsy's probably never been the same.

opening

there's something about creative writing teachers that seems to continue resonating in my life.

kay merrell, my creative writing teacher from high school (and probably one of the best women i will ever meet aside from my mother and a handful of other women, of course.) is one of them. and i write her name, hoping that maybe one day she'll google herself, and see this post. i'd be flattered if she read it. i hope she'd be flattered, too. i owe a lot of things to the woman who had a love for billy collins and told us stories of paris and new york and penny lane. my love of poetry, for one.

at the end of each semester, she would give us a trinket marbles for the first semester, a rock for the second and with each seemingly useless knicknack not useless to me, mind you, a poem of infinitely useful worth would come forth. i leave you with an excerpt from a poem that she wrote.

---------------

Years later
I still believe "good" and "bye"
are never meant to hold hands,
so I leave you with "good"
in a whispering stone.
My eyes will continue to dance
with days of wild writing
when our tiger tongues
found their prey,
those victimed words we greedily devoured,
tasting what we wanted to understand.
Place this in your road-mapped palm
where destiny lines are as endless
as London rains
and possibility peeks between each crevice.

Listen.

It will always spill its rambling secrets,
sun-streaked afternoons of watery laughter and inky memories
with a woman worn smooth
from too much loving.

---------------

perfect. it's exactly how good and bye should be explained.
it's the good that i leave with you.

you don't know who you are.
but i do.

and hopefully one day you'll realize. there is no bye to these words of mine which have endless meaning. only good. and i hope the good that i leave with you can one day blossom into something better.

something marvelous.

meet: the missionary

my 15-year-old self was a bit boy crazy. after i stopped liking ken gee, the crush that i'd had since the fourth grade, i realized the world of possibilities that had been open to me: drummer boy. rollercoaster boy. apricot no, he wasn't fruity and yes, he began "dating" my best friend at the time...or the equivalent of dating at 15-years-old.

then there was the missionary.

he sat next to me in art class for a term. possibly fate. possibly mr. calvin's attempt at matchmaking. i'll never know although i'm pretty sure fate had a hand in it. he was just the quiet, kind of hilarious red-headed boy that i sat next to and competed with at art.

after learning from him in a dead silent art room what a gluteus maximus was i laughed. loud. everybody heard. and after dancing with him at the 9th grade dance man i'm old, he joined us at lagoon day: the day where all the 9th graders got to go to the local amusement park because we were big kids, going off to high school. he told branticus that he had liked me all through art class, and i hadn't even known it. he gave up that day, because he found out i liked rollercoaster boy.

one week later, i liked him. thinking he liked me back, i was on a high. i heard through the grapevine because that was how it worked in 9th grade that he thought i was beautiful at a stake dance we went to. we danced four dances. yes, i remember. i rarely ever forget things. and i wrote it in my journal, so i have a reference.

then he liked another girl.
hard summer not the hardest i've been through.
i carried a torch for him through the first year of high school.
and by some miracle, he came back.

we went on our first date and got attacked by killer sprinklers and looked at the stars. he saved me from a spider. he played your song for me.

then it fizzled out, and i crushed a sonic peppermint that's where he worked: sonic. under my old car in the cul-de-sac by branticus's house. symbolic, i guess.

fast forward to senior year: ironically enough we illustrated for the teen section of our local newspaper together. funny. then i saw him at the ACT at my high school. funnier.

fast forward to last january january 19th: we met up again after he added me as a friend on facebook that previous saturday. we went on two dates. he was sort of my first kiss.

and here we are to today: several letters later and such. a little bit has changed. first of all, i know i'm not attached as much as i once was. he's a sweet guy, but i've met some one really great ones and there's a bar that's been set that wasn't there before. second of all, i'm not sure that two artists would do well in a relationship together. we'd fight all the time. probably.

but, it's a good story. and i'm still waiting to hear back from him since i sent my last letter. his last letter was a bit of a tender mercy, to say the least. the boy has impeccable timing.

so, to the missionary, i say this: hurrah for israel, and, well....i guess we'll see. bon chance.

the missionary. in france.
i may have stolen the picture off facebook.
don't tell.

when you think it's bad

there's a lot to be thankful for.

like these ladies.
especially the one on the far left


like this guy.
and his letter.


like this guy branticus
and his letter.


like the ducklings at the park.
you can't look at them and not smile.


like this song being number eleven on my cd.
eleven = my favorite number

and this song being fabulous.
and entitled one of my favorite names.

and this song.
for being beautiful.

lovely laura

it was 5:30 a.m.
sometimes that early in the morning, you feel like you're the only one in the world who could possibly be awake. it's lonely, at times.

but laura was there. she had to study, too.
i was looking through the notes on my laptop about authoritarian parenting styles and ways to cultivate friendship in marriage wondering why on earth i took this class when i heard the back door open and close. laura left.

what on earth could laura possibly have to do outside? at 5:34 in the morning?

she came back in. i asked her that very question.
"oh," she said, "i was just dropping a note off to a girl in our ward [i won't mention names]. i just love her!"

i knew it.

being the oldest, i always wanted an older sister while growing up. of course, that would have been a physical anomaly on the part of my mother if i was given that wish.
instead, i was blessed with sisters like laura. a sister who, although we aren't related by blood, continues to give me the love she would give her own family and continues to set an example of christ-like charity to me.

she's the reason i've learned to care.

so here's to you, lovely laura. you never cease to amaze me, and you never cease to amaze others.

te amo.

laura doing what laura does best.
loving.

to: moon unit

this post is dedicated to whit leigh.
you will understand all the
ambiguities today, whit.

remember that time in high school with this song?
or when we were in ms. spencer's class
and when she'd say "time" we'd pound our chests?

remember the punch dancing that went completely wrong? it was windy, and i was in a dress. it was liberating, for that brief moment before your foot broke. we never did finish our punch dancing experience.

there was also december our senior year, the week before cotillion...

remember when i liked wyoming boy, and your cockapoo about attacked him?
or when i told you about the swkt, and you said, "if a boy takes you to a 'swicket,' you kiss him."
you didn't even know what a swicket was, and you still don't

remember screaming on the phone with me?
remember screaming in the car with me?


there was also that time when i was upset about life: my family, boys, and i just ran away to your house right as you were going to work. you listened, and let me cry. you let me cry a lot of times to you. even though you didn't know how to really handle it, up until recently. kudos on being more in touch with your emotions, by the way

remember choir? and the ebola virus? and how you had that movie for three months?

and i'll always remember the runs over to tasty's. or how arby's makes us sick. or how we 'confiscated' food into movies over. and over. and over.


and now, i'll always remember that time you came to my apartment and said you loved a boy.
how i didn't believe you.
and after some explanation, i realized you weren't lying.
how, "i don't know" after someone asked if you could marry him was a big deal.
revolutionary.

but despite everything that may happen in the future, you'll always be the girl from mr. knecht's class who helped me take him back to his days in 'nam. that one girl who became friends with me over a huge piece of chicken at applebee's.

i love you.

i think it's spring that did it to me

i was reading in a book recently that life isn't about all the big things that happen.

yes, the "big things" (like going to kindergarten, learning to drive a car, going to college, mission, marriage, kids, etc.) are incredibly important moments to existence. but the real substance of our lives is in the small things.

every single emotion felt: whether it be how i felt after i lost, when my heart beats powerfully sporadic for one reason or another, feeling alive after running 2.3 miles, being embarrassed daily in my french class....those make up me.

every single person met: family and friends obviously, the girl who complimented my red jacket, the guy who held the door open for me, the cashier at the bookstore who always comments on my buying peanut butter m&ms. they make up me.

the missionaries.whit leigh.sadie jean.that one missionary.britt. jake.mom. dad.cross-country runner.muslim.wyoming boy.

all part of me.

every small thing: those leaves i crunch on when i walk up the stairs from hell. driving with becs to get overpriced paninis in stella. the red-ness of strawberries. the goldfish who survived against all odds. how my best friend legitimately loves a boy and how happy that makes me. singing queen with whit.

those make up my story.

and for the first time in my life, i realized how grateful i am that they do make up my story. the goods. the bads. the in-betweens.

because when it comes down to it
life is all about the in-betweens.

to you

i love love.

as i walked home today in the chilly march weather, i made this realization today. it was rather revolutionary, considering love has done me wrong one too many times (my theory behind why emily dickinson is so melancholy).

i walked, and i listened to garbled information from people passing me by. i walked, and i stole glances at the girl walking to class with stress in her eyes, the boy coming out of the science building--the couples walking hand-in-hand.

i love loving peanut butter m&m's.
i love loving art.
i love loving people

like my dad and his loudness.
my mom and her honesty.
my sister and brother and their banana fight the other day.
like my granny and her bread rolls.
like my grandma and her crossword puzzles.
like my granddad and his supposedly vast amounts of knowledge.

like the missionaries.
like sexy sadie. like whit leigh.

i love loving stella.
i love loving literature and learning and french.

i even love loving that one time. at that one place. in draper.

and despite everything that i haven't loved about the past little while, i may or may not love loving what i learned.

i'm pretty sure i'll love loving that, too.
it's just gonna take me a while to get there.